John Carter (2012)

John Carter Synopsis

From Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Andrew Stanton (“Finding Nemo,” “WALL-E”), JOHN CARTER OF MARS brings this captivating hero to the big screen in a stunning adventure epic set on the wounded planet of Mars, a world inhabited by warrior tribes and exotic desert beings. Based on the first of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Barsoom Series,” the film chronicles the journey of Civil-War veteran John Carter (TAYLOR KITSCH), who finds himself battling a new and mysterious war amidst a host of strange Martian inhabitants, including Tars Tarkas (WILLEM DAFOE) and Dejah Thoris (LYNN COLLINS).

John Carter actually cost Disney even more money to make than was originally thought. The box-office bomb, which only took in $284 million when it was released back in 2012, was thought to have cost the studio $250 million to make. But the final sum has now been revealed to be a ridiculous amount.

Nowadays, the name "John Carter" is synonymous with "flop" in Hollywood. Behind-the-scenes problems led to a ballooned budget of $250 million, and when it was released in March 2012 it only managed to make $73 million at the domestic box office. But that failure doesn't mean that the titular hero's time on the big screen is finished.

It's been two years since John Carter tried and failed to make a name for itself at the box office. Yet Andrew Stanton and Taylor Kitsch have both recently gone on record as stating that they'd love to return to the series if given the chance. It's time to give them that chance.

Looking back a year full of movies you have to remember the bad with the good. We can celebrate the best of the best and express our love and appreciation for them, but for the sake of balance it’s important to look back at the ones that we expected more from – the ones that didn’t deliver on expectations or hopes. These are the titles we see in theaters and leave saying, “Man, I wish that was better.”

The failure of John Carter understandably killed any chance for the sequel Stanton had planned, but he still believes in the movie he made and hopes this won't be the last we hear of the ambitious feature. In fact, he has hope the film will find its following eventually, like Blade Runner and The Wizard of Oz did.

There is some kind of harmony between The Avengers and John Carter. For example, it's kind of funny that the opening weekend domestic box office numbers for The Avengers, $200 million+, was exactly the total thatJohn Carter ended up losing Disney due to production costs and marketing materials. But now another connection has been made between the two movies as ticket sales of one are raising the profile of the other.

While John Carter was far from a perfect movie, it was orders of magnitude better than you would expect based on the trailers. Hopefully some of those folks who -- understandably -- gave JC a pass in theaters will check it out when it hits Blu-ray, DVD, and On Demand this June 5th.

With the book seemingly closed on the endless media stories speculating just how big a bomb John Carter would be, I find myself feeling sorry for it-- in a way it was the opposite of the bloated, calculated movies that usually become sinkholes for studios, made because Stanton was passionate about the material

I didn't get the chance to see John Carter until the midnight last Thursday, but walking out of the theater I found myself immensely perplexed. Everything that I read about the movie painted it as an overblown, convoluted mess, but I had a blast watching it and couldn't help but marvel at its scope. I would personally love to see Disney make a sequel to the movie, but the truth is that the first simply cost way too much money...

To me, John Carter is a creative failure, and there is plenty of blame to be tossed around about why it wasn't a triumph on the level of Andrew Stanton's previous two films Wall-E and Finding Nemo. But obsessing over its box office and trying to turn it into a historic failure is just wrong

John Carter has been hyped and re-hyped for months, including recent promotionals touting it as the first major blockbuster of the year. Turns out it isn't even in the top four biggest openings of the year so far.

The audience for John Carter is skewing a good bit older, with nearly 70% of the audience over the age of 25-- the reverse of what usually happens when you've got a big tentpole 3D film that crams in the teenage male audiences. We're still trying to sort out exactly what happened with John Carter to make audiences so uninterested-- you can join the conversation about that

This week on Operation Kino, we're hopping on an airship with our pet alien Woola and taking a trip to Barsoom, otherwise known as Mars. Yes, it's finally time for us to review John Carter, the new outer-space epic from Disney that has been making more headlines for its giant budget than anything else

It's kind of obvious to say it's fun to talk to Kitsch in person-- he's easy on the eyes, after all-- but in both our longer sit-down interview and the short video conversation, it was surprisingly fun and easy to strike up a conversation. He had just flown in from the South Pacific, where he was doing advance press for Battleship and shooting one last scene for the Oliver Stone drama Savages

For weeks and months and maybe even a year, even as Disney pulled out all the stops to market it, there's been a lingering sense of worry that nobody was going to go out to see John Carter. And with the weekend finally upon us, all those predictions seem to be coming true

John Carter is an expensive, hugely advertised and CGI-heavy adventure film, and these days that pretty much guarantees it will be shown in 3D. Though the movie wasn't shot in 3D, everything else in the movie is so cutting-edge that Disney is promising the best post-conversion 3D experience you can get on this one too

Dafoe's work on John Carter was much more involved than the last time he worked with director Andrew Stanton, voicing a fish for Finding Nemo. Dafoe traveled to the Utah desert and filmed his scenes in giant stilts to play Tars Tarkas-- he describes one of the most difficult physical challenges of the film as a simple scene where Tars Tarkas goes from lying down to standing

After a winter of blazing through The Wire on DVD, it was plenty surreal to sit down with West on a sunny patio in Arizona, where Disney had gathered the cast of John Carter for a massive press junket. I actually talked to West twice, once on camera, and below you can see our quick on-camera interview, as well as the transcript of our longer conversation

John Carter is an enormous movie with a sprawling cast, ranging from relative newcomers like Taylor Kitsch in the title role to respected veterans like Ciaran Hinds and Mark Strong. But among all those people, Lynn Collins was one of the few women, and certainly the only one to show off her swordfighting skills

This clip contains one of my favorite sequences of the film, in which John Carter attempts to escape his captors and is constantly brought back in. You get a nice sense of Carter's stubborn personality in the scene, but perhaps even more importantly, you can feel director Andrew Stanton in there

My post-Oscar hangover is just starting to wear off. Granted I didn’t drink at all during the show, but the whole thing was just so weird and disjointed that I ended up feeling wasted. Billy Crystal’s lypo-suction and Adam Sandler talking about “making movies” can have that effect on people. But what better way to dust off the cobwebs than Tim Riggins heading to Mars, Eddie Murphy shutting up and houses going quiet?

As you might be able to tell in the video below, it's a hard thing to describe. At the time we weren't allowed to talk about John Carter the movie at all-- and reviews are still under embargo-- so we were left to talk about the experience of interviewing Andrew Stanton, Taylor Kitsch and company in the unspeakably gorgeous resort setting just north of Phoenix

With John Carter getting ready to hit theaters next weekend, there's not much time left for Disney to convince moviegoers to jump for their giant blockbuster, an enormous, effects-filled movies coming after a two-month drought in pretty much any movies you'd call a "must-see."

Those who read my coverage from last year's D23 Convention may remember me describing a scene from John Carter that involved the titular hero, played by Taylor Kitsch, entering a gladiator arena with his alien friend (Willem Dafoe) and being forced to do battle with a giant creature called a White Ape. While I did my best to describe the sequence, the truth is that the only way to really experience it is to watch it yourself.

This week on Operation Kino, we're focusing on a smaller recent release with a review of Bullhead, the Belgian film that's nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at this weekend's Oscars and is also in theaters now. From there we move on to a conversation about a much bigger movie, John Carter, and specifically the recent rash of news reports that focus on its budget

Andrew Stanton’s adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel casts Taylor Kitsch as a Civil War veteran transported to Mars, where he’s caught up in an interplanetary battle between some truly bizarre alien races. Stanton reportedly shot in Utah and New Mexico, and you can tell from the expansive vistas of these clips that he made excellent use of the U.S. desert landscapes to replicate the red planet.

With a pricey advertising spot during the Super Bowl, the studio decided not to elaborate so much on the movie's plot or themes, but make sure that you knew the movie's title at all costs. See what I mean when you watch the Super Bowl spot below

To celebrate the release of their soon-to-hit science-fiction tent pole John Carter, Walt Disney Pictures is calling out to all John Carters for their strangely specific contest: the Real John Carter Sweepstakes. If your name is John Carter, Jonathan Kharter, Jawn Kartar, Juan Cartir or one of the many other accepted variations, then you are uniquely eligible to score free tickets to a special John Carters-only advance screening of the movie as well as the chance to win a trip for two to Peru.

There are three elements that I love about the Super Bowl. First there's the football (lets go Giants!), second there's the commercials, and last, but not least, there's the movie trailers. Every year, knowing that millions of people are glued to their television sets, studios release new looks - and sometimes first looks - at their major releases for the year. So far it seems like Disney is going all out.

John Carter may not be the most heavily publicized or anticipated film of 2012, but if our hunches are correct, it might turn out to be one of the best. As crazy as this outer space adventure looks, it doesn't take much knowledge to predict John Carter will be good

International trailers often tease with additional footage, which absolutely is the case for this Japanese clip advertising Andrew Stanton’s upcoming John Carter. I can’t recall a character of a nephew learning of his uncle’s “disappearance” in previous Carter clips, so we get a bit more of the backstory before shuttling on to the Red Planet, where Taylor Kitsch finds himself in a world of trouble and adventure.

In a way, John Carter is kind of a superhero. Unlike the native people of Mars, who have spent their entire lives experiencing the red planet's low gravity, Carter has the ability to leap huge distances without breaking a sweat. But if the protagonist is a superhero, that means that Andrew Stanton's John Carter will be serving as an origin story. So how exactly did he end up on Mars? That question is answered in the new international trailer...kind of.

Though Giacchino worked on Up, Ratatouille and The Incredibles for the animation giants, he oddly did not collaborate with Stanton in any official capacity on Finding Nemo or WALL-E. So for that reason, alone, we’re looking forward to John Carter, an adaptation of the classic Edgar Rice Burroughs novel which transports a Civil War hero (Taylor Kitsch) to the red planet where he’s caught up in an intergalactic battle.

It would seem that Brad Bird's transition from animation to live-action filmmaking has been an incredibly smooth one, but what about the other Pixar director about to make his mark? We're only a few months out from the debut of Andrew Stanton's John Carter and while nobody has seen the movie yet, it did just get a pretty badass new IMAX poster.

We still have to wait until March 9 of next year before director Andrew Stanton transports us to the Red Planet for an intergalactic conflict. But thanks to the latest trailer and these three new character banners posted to Apple.com, we have a better idea what’s in store when we arrive.

As I noted in my post for the brand new John Carter trailer, I'm still a bit nervous about the story side of things in the film (as well as Taylor Kitsch carrying a movie) but the visuals look stunning. From the wide, sweeping terrains of Mars, to the giant battles, to the cool-looking creatures, from an aesthetics point of view the movie look solid. Sadly the fast pacing of the trailer made it somewhat hard to appreciate what the film actually looks like...

Earlier today we posted a preview of the first theatrical trailer for the Andrew Stanton-directed John Carter. Sadly, however, the video wasn't that great quality-wise and was surrounded by inane chatter from the hosts of Good Morning America (at the very least I am glad that they didn't talk over the footage like Entertainment Tonight does). Fortunately you no longer have to deal with that version because now, courtesy of Disney, we have the full trailer.

It's unclear how or why Disney plans to sell John Carter, the outer space adventure movie based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, to the audience who watches Good Morning America. But they're doing their best anyway, shipping Taylor Kitsch to Times Square to chat with Robin Roberts

As we reported on Friday, the new trailer for Disney's John Carter is scheduled to arrive online this Thursday. Last week the news brought six new stills from the film, which showed off the stunning landscapes, alien creatures, and star Taylor Kitsch. But just as I predicted, the marketing is only starting to ramp up and today we have a brand new poster, courtesy of iTunes.

It's been reported that next Thursday we will get a new trailer for John Carter, the first live-action film produced by Pixar Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton. It''s been a long wait since we last saw footage from the movie, with the first and only teaser trailer premiering in July, but with the film scheduled to hit theaters in March the marketing should pick up very quickly. Just last week we saw a brand new still from the movie premiere online, but now six more have arrived to whet your appetite.

Despite some looks at the concept art and that gorgeous teaser trailer, we still only seen the smallest glimpses of what director Andrew Stanton's John Carter has in store for us. What we have seen looks amazing, but there are still many fantastic elements of Mars -- excuse me, Barsoom -- yet to be glimpsed. Now we've got a look at one of the most iconic creatures of writer Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter books -- the ferocious White Apes.

With director Andrew Stanton and stars Taylor Kitsch, Willem Dafoe, and Lynn Collins on stage, the audience in the Anaheim Convention Center was privy to a four clips from the upcoming epic based on the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Check out the recap inside.

The first trailer for John Carter, formerly known as John Carter of Mars, has come online, and it's probably not what you're expecting. It's far moodier and a little slower than you might expect from your usual giant CGI movie set in outer space. But that also makes it a lot more interesting

The movie is a departure for Stanton on many levels, his first foray into live-action and his first attempt at starting a trilogy-- "Most people know me at Pixar as the guy that doesn't like to do sequels or very reluctant to do sequels. The irony wasn't lost on me when I asked them to do this first book to option the first 3."

Andrew Stanton has come prepared with visual aids. While the massive collection of concept art, costumes, footage and even props from his next film John Carter is surely impressive, it was three childish drawings projected up on the screen that sold me

Speaking of controlling the way a film is presented, Stanton also gave a great interview to the Times, talking about his visual inspirations in putting together the alien world of John Carter, how to make sure a new sci-fi story feels truly original, and how John Carter may feel like more of a historical epic than a sci-fi film

Kitsch plays the titular character, an American soldier inexplicably transported to Mars, but a lot of character actors you probably love round out the cast, including Willem Dafoe, Bryan Cranston, Thomas Haden Church, Samantha Morton, and Sinestro himself, Mark Strong

It's typically not wise to question the decisions made by Pixar. Since releasing the first Toy Story in 1995 no other studio, on a percentage basis, has been more successful critically. Cars, seen by many as the weakest Pixar production, still has a 74% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. That said, their most recent move - changing the title of John Carter of Mars - is quite confounding.